


Too many goodbyes

by Bill_Longbow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Don't copy to another site, First Kiss, Fix-It, Getting Together, M/M, Past fear of homophobia, Pining, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bill_Longbow/pseuds/Bill_Longbow
Summary: Bucky finds Steve the night before he'll leave to bring the stones back.





	Too many goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write an alternative ending to Endgame. It's been written in a hurry, so I hope it's not too choppy. Thank you to AoifeTinyStark for beta-ing!
> 
> For Thewilfling.
> 
> Serves as the first of my Bucky Barnes bingo squares: Y5 Apology

He finds Steve sitting on the roof, toying with that damn compass again. Bucky had liked agent Carter, he really did, but that thing Stevie and her had been caught up in had filled him with envy of an intensity that had scared him, and coming back from the dead to Steve playing with that compass all the time wasn't the happy reunion he hoped for during the battle. Of course nothing was happy after the losses they suffered.

“Hey punk.”

“Hey Buck.”

Bucky lowers himself onto the roof. The smile Steve gives him never fails to warm him from the inside out. He’d follow that smile anywhere. _Has_ followed it anywhere. There was a time in Wakanda he had thought that maybe Steve only smiled like that for him anymore, that it could mean something different, something special. That maybe it was time for a leap of faith and tell Steve. Of course that was when the world ended.

Maybe in the meantime Steve has gotten tired of losing Bucky all the damn time. He sure as hell is sick of it himself. It’s obvious Steve hasn’t moved on in the past five years, but it wasn’t Bucky he has dreamed about. It probably never has been.

They sit watching the stars together. The silence only broken by the soft click every time Steve opens and closes the locket. It grinds on Bucky’s nerves enough for him to finally reach out and wrap his hand around Steve’s.

“Sorry,” Steve shrugs and gives him that self deprecating smile Bucky already dreamt about kissing back in the 1930’s.  

“What’s eating ya?” Bucky lets go and sits back again. Better focus on Steve than on what’s not to be. Apparently not-death made him sentimental in his old age.

Another shrug followed by Steve staring out over the green surrounding the villa. “I hate what we lost in order to win.”

Ah. Steve always took it hard when they lost men. He would beat himself up for it for days, until the next battle where he could prove he was the strongest, the hardiest. Somehow he thinks having the serum means he’s the only one who should be hit.

“I’m sorry.” Tentatively Bucky reaches out to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder. It used to be easier to do this. He used to know exactly what to say or do to comfort Steve.

He might be doing alright though, because Steve covers his hand with his own and gives him another, more genuine smile. “Thanks, buddy.”

Bucky nods, squeezes Steve’s shoulder and pulls his hand back before he does anything stupid like pull Steve closer and into a hug. They sit quietly again, each lost in their own thoughts.

“I saw her,” Steve suddenly starts, motioning with his hand that holds the locket. “When we went back for the space stone. I hid in her office and she came in on the other side.”

Bucky exhales, feeling as invisible as that time Peggy had walked into the bar in her poppy red dress. He knew then as he knows now there’s no competing with _that_.

“It would be so easy to go back and just… stay.” Steve continues, and Bucky doesn’t like the look Steve gives him. He knows that look. It’s a look that means he’s cooking up some harebrained scheme and good luck to whoever tries to talk him out of it.

“You’re gonna offer to take the stones back, aren’t ya?”

Bucky knows he shouldn’t feel hurt, that he should be grateful for every second together, but fuck it does hurt.

“Who better than the man out of time?” Steve says, and he looks almost as sad as Bucky feels.

“How about the brainwashed assassin?” _That nobody cares about_ stays unspoken.

It’s the way Steve juts his chin out, exactly like he did when he was nothing but a sickly runt, that tips Bucky off.

“What are you gonna do, Steve?” He asks, automatically reaching out for Steve’s arm. They’ve had this exact exchange dozens of times and it’s easy to fall into the steps of it. Steve has always been a horrible liar, and Bucky searches his face for clues. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

It’s such shock, especially when Steve doesn’t deny it, but draws himself up as if gearing for a fight, that Bucky lets his hand drop again.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What the hell are you planning out there? You know you can’t change anything or risk making a new timeline!” The details are still confusing to Bucky, but he knows this is the general gist of it. This is the reason the stones have to be delivered back in the first place.

Steve looks away instead of answering. Another clue things are very wrong and Bucky feels dread rise along his spine. Steve is gonna go back in time and live happily ever after with Agent Carter and leave Bucky in this godforsaken future on his own. Just like Bucky has left Steve again and again.

“I have to try,” Steve mutters, and Bucky almost misses it.

“What?”

Steve squares his shoulders and looks Bucky in the eye. “I’m going to keep them from catching you.”

Bucky stares at Steve, his thoughts racing in a million different directions. “What?” He reiterates.

“I need to know there’s at least one timeline where you’re happy, Buck.” Steve looks so sincere, a look that’s been etched in Bucky’s memory for as long as he can remember. The same look that was familiar enough it helped break the programming.

“What about _this_ me?” Bucky’s mouth asks before his brain can stop it and now it’s Steve’s turn to look surprised. His hurt half smile makes Bucky want to punch him in frustration.  

_You promised me till the end of the line. We're not there yet…_

"Shoulda caught you the first time, Bucky, you don't know how sorry I am, and I… This is my chance to set things right."

"No, it ain't." Bucky can't believe his ears. "There's no saving the poor schmuck that ends up as the Winter Soldier. If it’s not me it will be someone else. What if you botch things up? What if by saving me they catch you instead?"

When Steve looks away Bucky knows he’s considered this himself, and it’s enough for Bucky to snap. ‘Fuck no, Rogers,” he yells, shooting up to move into Steve’s space. “Absolutely not! How do you think I feel knowing you’re out there gallivanting and fighting nazis without me to watch your six, huh? Make a version of me happy… Fuck you, Steve. If you wanted to make me happy you would stay right here, damn it.”

Bucky runs an agitated hand through his hair instead of punching something while Steve looks a mixture between contrite and perplexed, his eyebrows knitting together as he tries to make sense of what Bucky is saying.

“Bucky?”

“What?” Bucky snaps, more angry at himself for letting go like that than at Steve for being… for being Steve.

“I never made you happy…” Steve sounds just like he would after Bucky found him in a dumpster again, or when he was sent home from another job after standing up for someone. He sounds both mulish and sorry, a combination unique to Steve Rogers as far as Bucky knows.

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky shakes his head. His anger has disappeared and he’s tired more than anything. He knows there’s nothing he can do when Steve has made up his mind, and come morning he’ll lose his best friend again.

“You. There’s nothing but you for me. I’ve loved ya since that summer when my ma lucked out and got a bucket’a plums and you ate one in our kitchen with the juice running all down your chin. It was the best thing we had in weeks and you laughed so happy and the sunlight hit your hair and... “ Bucky falters and sighs. It’s the most he’s spoken in the days since waking up from the dead spell and he’s sure it’s another nail in the coffin of his friendship with Steve.

“I was fifteen then.”

Bucky shrugs in answer. He knows. He was seventeen and should’ve been all mooneyes over the girls in their street. Instead he was hopelessly clobbered over the most frustrating and wonderful boy he knew.

“I never knew,” Steve whispers and Bucky looks up to see him look sad again.

“‘T wasn’t allowed,” Bucky answers, remembering how scared he’d been to be found out back then, enough that he’d spent so much time with girls to built a reputation. “And after Azanno…” Bucky looks away.

“Bucky?” Steve asks when Bucky doesn’t elaborate.

“You had Peggy...”

Steve looks startled from the locket in his hand to Bucky, like he finally understands why Bucky hates the damn thing, and puts it away in his pocket. "And you call me an idiot."

Bucky is about to agree when Steve turns to face Bucky and reaches out to cup his cheek with one hand. Bucky is caught in the moment, frozen, as he waits helplessly for Steve to gap the distance between them.

When their lips meet Bucky's eyes close on their own volition and the soft exhale of a breath he’d been holding for decades escapes him. It's only a brief kiss, a soft brush of Steve's lips against his, but it's more than Bucky ever thought he'd have and when Steve pulls back he's shaking.

"Buck," Steve sighs and rests his forehead against Bucky's. "If I'd known…"

Bucky doesn't dare talk, doesn't dare move, afraid to break the spell and wake up shivering on the ground where he fell from the cryo tube.

"I'm sorry." It's barely a whisper between them, and Bucky doesn't even know what he apologises for. For falling, for dying, for trying to kill Steve, for not resisting hard enough, for not being Peggy. It's a jumble of clamouring thoughts, but they miraculously fall silent when Steve kisses him again. More forceful this time, like he wants to push the apology back. The notion that Steve makes him eat his words surprises a chuckle out of Bucky and Steve's answering smile against his lips might feel even better than the kiss itself.

"Come with me?" Steve asks when he pulls back again, as if there was any other option, any universe where Bucky would just let Steve go.

"No monkey business though," Bucky answers and tries to sound like he did way, way back when.

Steve's grin spells nothing but mischief, and it hits Bucky this is the look that he’s been missing since he got his mind pieced back together.

"Scout's honour." Steve even has the nerve to give the scout's salute. "Unless you mean more of this," he motions between them, "cause I'm planning on kissing you a heck of a lot from now on."

"That so, man with a plan?”

“Uhuh, try and stop me.”

“For once, I think I won’t,” Bucky grins and pulls Steve closer.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://bill-longbow.tumblr.com) or join us on the 16+ [ Stuckony discord server ](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n) for all things Tony, Bucky and Steve!


End file.
